Emma Turns 8

Wow! I can't believe it. My little girl is 8 years old! Where did the time go?! Eight is a very serious age, and now she is there. Isn't there something I can do to slow this all down?
Anyway, she had such a fun day. Here she is is her birthday hat (I mean crown) from school.
She was glad that she got to be back in school for her birthday so that she could celebrate with her friends, and take a treat to her class.
That night we had a party/dinner with our families. She picked out all the food and it was quite the event! Our families are getting so big and it was fun to have most of them there to celbrate with us. Emma really appriciated everyone that came. It was the first year that she really seemed to care. I on the other hand kind of felt crazed, since I spent pretty much the whole day cooking, and the whole day before shopping, and most of the night cleaning up. But it was a lot of fun, and I am grateful for everyone's help and support. We have a great family! Emma has decided she doesn't like cake, so she wanted Key Lime Pie instead. She I made Key Lime Pie. It actually turned out pretty good. Who knew I could do that.

Of course opening presents was her favorite thing. She got so many cute things! Everyone is so generous! The cute sweater she is wearing was a gift from Scot. I was so proud of him. He picked it out all by himself. It is adorable, and it was only $6. What a smart shopper he was!

The next day Emma had some friends over for a birthday slumber party. I know I am crazy. But I told her no sleepovers until she was 8, so what was my excuse now. She ended up having 3 friends that could come. That was a managable number. Scot took Ben and Lucy out to his parents, so it was just the girls and I.
Emma wanted to party to be something where they made the stuff themselves. So they each made their own pizzas, cut out jello jigglers, decorated their own cupcakes, and made their own ice cream. They all loved it! It was more work than I thought trying to organize everything and make sure everyone had what they needed, but it worked out.

I convinced Emma that her friends wouldn't appriciate Key Lime Pie (I really just didn't want to make another one.) and that we should do cupcakes. She agreed, but didn't actually eat her cupcake. At least she blew out the candle.
After loading them all up with sugar, they laid down to watch a movie. I thought this might calm them down. No such luck! When we turned out the lights at 11:30 they were still plenty giggly and stayed up until about 1:00. I dont' think we will do this often but I am glad that she had a great time.